


numb love

by hqten



Series: ten's sakuatsu angst week 2021 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, brief mention of hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29980899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hqten/pseuds/hqten
Summary: Atsumu hates the fact that he is human.Atsumu hates the fact that he is human, because to be human means to grow attached, and to grow attached means to be vulnerable.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: ten's sakuatsu angst week 2021 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204862
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63
Collections: SakuAtsuAngstWeek





	numb love

**Author's Note:**

> sakuatsu angst week, day two, prompt two: unrequited love

Atsumu hates the fact that he is human.

Atsumu hates the fact that he is human, because to be human means to grow attached, and to grow attached means to be vulnerable.

In Atsumu’s case, he’s grown attached to Sakusa Kiyoomi, his teammate, and he hates every fibre of his body for it. He grows attached like a weed grows amongst flowers, because it’s ugly and not meant to be there. He grows attached like a tumour under the skin, because it’s painful and unwanted and nothing good will come out of it. He grows attached like a river grows out of a trickle, because it’s slow and then it’s faster and all of a sudden it’s an unstoppable, destructive force that drowns him.

And Kiyoomi can’t rescue him because Kiyoomi doesn’t care.

Love isn’t the warm, bubbly feeling that the fairytales painted it as. It’s nowhere near as comforting. Love is a terror that wakes him up at night, crying and shaking, because he’s missing something that isn’t his. Love is so intense that it drives him to hate. He hates himself for loving where he isn’t supposed to, and he hates the world for blindly insisting that love is beautiful when it’s anything but.

Just when Atsumu thinks he’s finished growing attached, something else grows.

A garden of daffodils in his lungs, pressing against the inside of his chest and quivering every time he speaks.

Hanahaki disease.

He discovers it suddenly. He wakes up after a fitful sleep, yawns, and coughs. A single petal erupts from his throat, scraping the sides of his mouth and falling into his outstretched hand. He examines it. It’s bright and yellow and hideously beautiful, so delicate that it’s hard to believe something as vicious as love caused it. He rubs the petal between his thumb and forefinger, feeling it disintegrate. After some deliberation, he elects to throw it away. It’s only one petal. He can just ignore it.

As it turns out, he can’t just ignore it, because five minutes later he’s hunched over on his apartment floor, hacking up petals and leaves and stems into the toilet. Every time he thinks he’s finished tearing his lungs apart, the wave will resurface and the process will repeat.

By some miracle of nature, he manages to scrape himself off the floor and attempts to start his day. His lips are cracked and his mouth is dry and he hurts, every part of his body is in pain, especially his stupid little heart. It's like all of the unrequited love in his heart burst out and infected his lungs instead, sowing the seeds of constant heartbreak.

He tries to hide it. For the next two days, he pretends that he isn’t coughing up literal flowers every five minutes. He greets kiyoomi like nothing’s wrong, plays as best as he can, and attempts to engage in banter with the rest of the team, bearing a smile so wide it’s almost comical.

The minute that practice ends and he’s alone, he falls to his knees, letting out the petals that have been suffocating him. He's tried to swallow them, but that only worsens the issue; they get stuck in his throat.

Instead, he swallows his pride.

“Kiyoomi,” he whispers the next morning. They’re on their way to the MSBY gym and Atsumu wants to hide any glimpses of yellow behind his teeth, so he’s moving his lips as little as possible. There's also the fact that his throat is well and truly sore, due to a particularly intense coughing fit last night.

“Miya.”

“There's something I gotta tell ya. And it’s important.”

Kiyoomi glances at him.  
“You’re ill.”

“Huh? How'd ya know?”

“You often try to stifle a cough.” Kiyoomi’s brow furrows, deep lines of worry appearing on his face. “I’m assuming it’s some sort of virus, but no one else appears to have any other symptoms, so maybe it’s not contagious-”

“Hanahaki,” Atsumu interrupts.

Kiyoomi stares at him.  
“That’s unfortunate. Who have you caught feelings for?”

“You,” Atsumu says. It’s his first spoken confession, and as if on cue, another petal springs out of the back of his throat. It catches against his teeth and he spits it out, a flash of yellow soaked with saliva, falling in a graceful yet disgraceful motion.

Kiyoomi watches it fall. The corner of his eye twitches.  
“Me?”

“I love you.”

Kiyoomi is silent and Atsumu thinks that’s the worst possible outcome. He waits for him to say something, anything, hoping that if he speaks then the curse of unrequited love will loosen its grip around Atsumu’s throat and he’ll finally be free from its shackles.

But Kiyoomi is silent.

“Kiyoomi?”

“Surgery is a viable option. There’ll be a two week recovery period, of course, but it's better to remove the flowers as soon as possible before they start affecting your lung capacity.” 

“You want me to get rid of them?”

“I can’t help you,” Kiyoomi says slowly. “I’m flattered, but I don’t feel the same way. I doubt I ever will.”

Atsumu loves Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi doesn’t love Atsumu and that’s the way the story goes.

Atsumu calls his doctor that evening. An appointment is scheduled, and three weeks later he’s waking up in a hospital bed with an emptiness in his chest and a clouded memory.

The nurse by his bedside informs him that he had just undergone surgery to remove hanahaki flowers in his lungs. He's surprised. He asks who he fell in love with.

He's told that pre-surgery, he asked not to be reminded when he woke up.

After two weeks of recovery, he’s allowed to partake in light exercise. He watches the Jackals practice from the sidelines. Everyone’s exactly as he remembered.

Apart from Sakusa.

He looks at Sakusa and feels nothing.

Not love. Not friendship. Just a vast abyss of hollowness where emotions should have been.

Sakusa looks at him and nods, like he’s satisfied by what he sees.

Atsumu nods in return, like he has any clue what has happened.

He considers if Sakusa was the one he fell in love with. 

He doesn’t consider it too hard. 

What’s done is done. What happened before is irrelevant. All he can do now is go on, and try to ignore the jolting numbness that surfaces every time he and Sakusa make eye contact.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading, as always, come find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hqtens)


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